Black
by blackcatt19
Summary: "The lies taste black on your tongue, and part of you whispers that Dick may be gone, as in never coming back." Batman-centric. Kidnapped Robin, asylums, and brainwashing. Companion one-shot to 'White'.


Well, ya'll asked for it. This is a companion one-shot to White, offering Batman's point of view. They will be better if you read both of them. Enjoy.

* * *

Something's wrong.

Its seven fifty seven and Dick's not home. The pot roast that Alfred made is getting cold, and the extra plate to your right is untouched. Jason eats quietly to your left.

(Dinner is never quiet, because Dick and Jason fight like cats and dogs, and Jason being quiet is never a good thing. Part of you wants him to cuss, throw potatoes, fidget, anything. It's too quiet.)

Jason asks you where Dick is. You push away your plate and stalk off without answering. There's no sign of him on the scanners in the Cave, and the tracer in his suit is offline. You start to get worried. The black of the screen that is supposed to have his tracer on it seems strangely final.

(You tell yourself it's just malfunctioning, but there's a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach you can't shake.)

You leap from building to building toward the zeta point, searching for any sign of a small red motorcycle and its owner. In an alleyway three blocks from the zeta, you find the bike, but no sign of Robin. Two blocks later, you see his belt, thrown in a dumpster.

(Robin never leaves his belt, not since Two-Face caught him two years ago. It made him feel safe. You never commented, but the look on his face when you gave him a collapsible one that he could bring to school told you that he understood you cared.)

You enlist the Team. You tell the Justice League. You scan the police broadcasts, and have facial recognition software going through thousands of security camera pictures per second.

(The only things anyone finds are a rag that tests positive for chloroform and an ATM snapshot of two men in black masks shoving a large bag into an unmarked van at six forty eight PM.)

Weeks pass, then months, without anything. No ransom note, no gloating message, no body.

(You deal with dozens of kidnapping cases every year. You always looked down on those parents who could only sob to cameras and beg for their child to be returned. When you think of finding Dick's body, your throat gets tight and you think, maybe, that you understand.)

The Team is falling apart. M'gann changes her hair to a short bob and gets too reckless with her telepath abilities. Conner breaks up with her. Kaldur is so distracted that Artemis nearly dies in a fight with the Riddler, of all people. Wally walks like a zombie, and wonders loudly why any of them want to be superheroes in the first place.

(Deep down, you agree with him. You wonder if Dick deserved better than this life, and then you wonder when you started thinking of him in the past tense.)

Jason is so quiet, sometimes you forget he is there. He's stopped getting in fights at school, and you haven't gotten a note from his teacher in weeks.

(You find him in Dick's room more than once, curled up in his bed and hugging a tattered plush robin.)

He spends all of his time in the gym, practicing his flips and hand-to-hand. You don't join him often, because you keep superimposing his face with Dick's. When he comes to you and asks if he can be Robin, part of you is proud. The other part of you wants to do something you haven't done since your parents were shot, and break down and cry. You ask him why, and he says he wants to be like his big brother.

(It's the first time he ever called Dick his brother.)

You get him a suit, like Dick's but different. Jason will never be like Dick, with bright colors and a bright smile. You let him out on the street bit by bit, and he does well.

(You wish you could tell him that, but you also wish you could keep him from being Robin. You don't think you could survive losing two sons.)

You haven't been paying attention to work. Lucius asks you what's wrong and you smile and tell him you just miss your ward, off to Japan for a foreign exchange program. You go home early and spend the night staring at the search programs, willing them to find something.

(The lies taste black on your tongue, and part of you whispers that Dick may be _gone_, as in never coming back.)

Six months pass and there's been no sign. You have nothing to show for the search but dark circles, lost weight, missed work, and dozens on dozens of beaten, interrogated criminals. Alfred tells you that you can't go on like this. He tells you that _Dick _wouldn't want you to go on like this.

(You are the god-damned_ Batman_. What good was any of it if you can't even save the people you care about?)

You move the mouse over the 'quit search' option on the screen, watching the flashes of pictures. No sign. Your chest is tight and the world is blurry, but you _will not_ cry. This isn't giving up, you tell yourself. Jason disagrees loudly and violently, shoving you away from the console. He screams at you, that Dick would never give up on you if you were the one missing.

(You agree with him, but then, Dick always was a better person than you.)

The computer beeps frantically at you and a picture is frozen on the screen, snapped on a phone and posted on a social media website. You stare at an emaciated boy in white hospital clothes, sitting in a wheelchair. His eyes are blank and dead, and his hair is too long.

(The caption reads 'My son is finally back with us! Praying he will be able to come home soon.' You can't help but to agree.)

The photo was posted by a woman whose name you don't care about. She screams when you and Jason burst into her living room, and a short blonde man tries to brain you with a vase. You shove the picture in her face. She tells you that it's her son, missing for eight years, now found and being treated for schizophrenia at a mental hospital in Central.

(You'll feel bad about the bruises around her throat and her husband's concussion later. Right now, there's black anger running through your vision and you don't care.)

Something is wrong.

You and Jason arrive at the asylum. The guards try to shoot at you, but they are disarmed and unconscious faster than they can aim their guns. The warden smirks at you. He tells you that you are too late. He never gets a chance to tell you what you are too late for.

(You've never wanted to kill anyone more in your life.)

Orderlies try desperately to stop you as you stalk through the halls. Jason stops them, but you barely notice. You have to find Dick.

(The blackness is taking over your vision and your hearing and all you can concentrate on is that Dick is here and that if you don't find him _now_, you don't want to think about what will happen.)

They tried to hide the white door with a huge metal cabinet. It's locked from the inside. You bloody your knuckles breaking the hinges before kicking it in.

(He's limp and tangled in a thick padded jacket and thin, scratchy sheets, and he's so thin and pale, nothing more than a ghost of your Robin.)

You pick him up more gently than you've ever done anything in your life. You carry him out of the white room, out of the white hallways. You make it to the Batmobile and cut off the strait-jacket. Dick is bradycardic and hypopneic and coated in sweat and you're panicking and calculating treatments for sedative overdoses. You start driving. Jason's eyes are wide and terrified behind his domino mask.

(You want to tell him that Dick will be alright, but you're afraid he'll be able to tell it's a lie.)

You drive like a bat out of hell. You get as close as you can to the cabin that houses this regions zeta point. You grab Dick and start running, murmuring to the boy in your arms, trying to get him to stay awake.

(You keep telling him to hold on, to keep breathing, but you don't think he can hear you anymore. There's something wet running down your cheeks.)

He drags his eyes open and stares at you and you know that he recognizes you and he smiles just a little bit and your heart is breaking. His eyes slide shut.

(His breathing is slowing more and he's so limp in your arms and you can feel his heart stuttering-)

"Hold on, Dick, please hold on."

* * *

Yeah, I may just be that evil. Sorry 'bout that. For those who don't know, bradycardic is a term for a slow heartbeat, and hypopneic is a term for shallow breathing. And yes, Jason is in this, and isn't crazy. Since the YJ world is so much happier in general than the rest of the comic book world, I decided that it would be entirely possible for Dick and Jason to be living with Bruce at the same time, and to get along fairly well, in a dysfunctional sibling love/hate sort of way. Anywho, let me know what you think.


End file.
